The problem with Riot's model
The premise that Riot is operating on is this: Faster games with a higher kill count equates to more exciting games. Now in theory, they are implying this both to playing the game and to watching the game, but their focus in this regard is pretty tangibly regarding watching esports. We all know how Riot and the casters love to promote the kill per minute goal as the mark of an exciting game.
Gentlemen and ladies, neither the length of the game nor the number of kills in it makes a good game, it is the quality of the contest. I will allow that not everyone who watches LoL will appreciate the beauty of a long, low kill game where the action was almost entirely in the rotation game, yet there is beauty and excitement there, an appreciation of the strategy of the game outside of flashy plays and high KDAs.
In this pre-season of rapid snowballs and sub 20 minute inhibitors, I believe Riot is missing the troubling factor that nearly all best of 5 matches in season 5, from regional playoffs up to the final, were 3-0 sweeps in which one team easily defeated the other. But making the game so much easier to snowball, you're only increasing the odds that your top billed matches will be dull one sided stomps for season 6. I guess the upside is that they will last less time?
And to be sure, the problems that Riot has pointed to with the games dragging on as teams get 'choked out' is their own fault, their ever increasing escalation of mobility and wave clear on champions and items has both made it more difficult to engage and siege towers. Morelleo used to talk about the mobility creep as a problem that needed to be addressed, but we don't see that kind of talk anymore, instead we get the map designed to assist whomever gets the first lead.
Perhaps more problematic for Riot is that their esports viewer base is, by and large, their player base. I'm a bang on average player, maybe even below average player. I don't care, I'm 40 and I have no aspiration or desire to become a high tier player, I just like to log on and have some fun playing the game. This pre-season, however, is simply not fun. I am so tired of playing against teams with 3-4 roles filled with ADC champions, or how certain champions with 1-2 items can wreck entire teams. Not to mention having all these fun items to build, but often games end with no more than 3 items having time to be built.
You know what a boring game to play and watch is? Heroes of the Storm. I tried watching the world championship they had, but only lasted a few games. Without gold, items, individual xp, the strategy in the game is so shallow that it is painfully dull. Yet in some ways it feels as if Riot wants to approach that style of play.
No, I'm not quitting LoL, no, I don't think Riot is going to put itself out of business. But I do feel like this season's changes have made the game significantly less fun to play, and I will not be surprised if the LCS is less fun to watch as well, despite having more kills and shorter game lengths.
And just in case anyone from Riot actually reads this, could you fix matchmaking please? Before the preseason patch I was paired with similar bracket folks. Now I'm paired with people two divisions above me.
